The Datacolor Spyder5 makes sure the colors of your photos don’t surprise you

If you really enjoy taking photos, then you’ve likely noticed an annoying problem that comes about when you’re trying to print the pictures you’ve worked hard to take and edit. More often than not they come out very dark or tinted a color that you didn’t see on your screen, and there’s a very good reason as to why. The color of your screen and the actual color of the photo are wholly different things, and without help there’s not much you can do to fix it.

There are a million different versions and brands of calibrators, but for those just starting out who don’t want to blow massive amounts of money on one, the Spyder5 from Datacolor seems like a good option. This uses a 4-step process that will guide you through calibrating your monitor to get better color accuracy. You can even see the before and after results of how your monitor is on some pre-set images.

This has a 7-detector optical engine that will help to take out the over saturation and high brightness screens are known for. This way you won’t spend as much time printing and re-printing, having to use up ink and paper just to figure out where things went wrong. This comes with a dual purpose lens cap and counterweight, and should work with desktops and laptop monitors nicely. This is going to cost you $129, and will hopefully help you turn out better prints. There are higher quality versions, but the price jump and what they can do are significantly higher.